It is desirable to cover pools, such as swimming pools, for various reasons, such as to prevent evaporation and heat loss and to provide solar heating. Conventional pool covers have several shortcomings. Heavy covers are expensive. They are large and bulky and not easily used or stored. Pool covers of light material, such as of bubble pack type, typically cover an entire pool and project over the decking for anchoring the cover and preventing the cover from falling into the pool. Such covers are subject to winds that often lift them so as to dislocate or actually move the covers from the pool areas to other areas, e.g. a neighbor's yard. Winds can pull such large light pool covers from under the sand bags or steel pipes that are commonly used. Further, any large cover can be dangerous for small children or animals, which can be trapped underneath.
Smaller solar pool heaters of the floating type have been proposed, but none appear to be available for purchase. The ones proposed have several disadvantages. Many heaters have hard or rigid parts that are dangerous should a person fall into the pool and that make covers bulky and difficult to store. Some of the larger floating covers have large air chambers that would encourage convection and heat loss. The lighter ones would tend to fly away in the wind. In general, they are bulky to store, difficult to deploy, and difficult to retrieve and remove.
Therefore, there it is desirable to have an improved floating pool cover that overcomes shortcomings in the prior art.
Magnets and magnetic fields have been used to treat water. Examples of magnetic treatment covers for water are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,951,807 and 4,153,559, both in the name of Charles H. Sanderson, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,059,296 to Mark Sherman. The magnetic devices are said to condition the water by altering various minerals suspended in the water and to reduce the amount of oxidizer, such as chlorine, required to keep the water sanitary
Therefore, it is further desirable that the improved floating pool cover incorporate magnets for conditioning the water.
There are also instances when it is desirable to prevent solar energy from heating a pool. For example, in hot climes, it is often desirable to prevent pools, such as irrigation and animal drinking ponds, from heating and evaporating. Conventionally, to save the water, such pools may be covered with a canopy, completely enclosed, or cooled by a refrigerator. Such amelioration methods are typically very costly or very inconvenient.
Therefore, there has been a need for an improved floating pool cover for reducing unwanted solar heating of pools.